Monique Eliot, director general of the OIE, leads a high-level panel discussion at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, in Berlin, 19 Jan 2018 (photo credit: BMEL/Inga Kjer/photothek).

Improved animal health and welfare standards do more than improve animal health and welfare, as important as those are. Applying such standards can increase food production in ways that also protect the environment and enhance the resilience of livestock producers and systems.

Any transition to more responsible and efficient livestock production models depends on nations implementing, and meeting, appropriate health and welfare standards. This is why equipping national officials and private businesses with the technical knowledge and resources to adapt global standards to local circumstances is so important.

This point was repeatedly raised by the keynote speakers at a high-level panel on the future of animal health and welfare organized by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) as part of the tenth Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), which was held in Berlin from 18 to 20 Jan 2018.

The GFFA is an international annual conference on the future of the global agri-food industry organized and hosted by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in cooperation with GFFA Berlin e.V., the Senate of Berlin and Messe Berlin GmbH. The annual forum gives representatives from the worlds of politics, business, science and civil society opportunities to share ideas and enhance understanding of topics shaping current agricultural policy.

Live drawing at the OIE High-Level Panel at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, Berlin, 19 Jan 2018 (photo credit: BMEL/Inga Kjer/photothek).

Opening the panel event—‘Animal health and welfare: Two cornerstones for the future of globally diversified livestock production’—Monique Eloit, director general of the OIE, highlighted the centrality of livestock production to the livelihoods of 750 million of world’s poorest people. Every year up to 20% of the world’s livestock production is lost to animal diseases, she said. Resilient animal health systems that are able to prevent and control animal diseases are needed more than ever, Eloit said.

Our societies are calling for a world where the welfare of animals is respected, promoted and advanced in ways that meet the requirements of sustainability, climate stewardship and economic efficiency. With rising populations and growing urbanization, the livestock sector is critical to producing nutritious foods.—Monique Eliot, OIE

In an increasingly interdependent world, disease management is vital, speaker after speaker underlined. The nature of infectious diseases requires cooperation across borders, they said. But compliance with disease control regulations is a challenge for many governments and businesses. In 2017, for example, 300 new trade measures related to animal health were introduced worldwide.

‘Trade in animals is worth USD156 billion a year’, said Christiane Wolff, counsellor in the Agriculture and Commodities Division of the World Trade Organization. ‘But diseases can be transmitted through trade, and measures to ensure trade is safe also restrict that trade. Compliance challenges take the form of such requirements as setting up certification schemes and learning new knowledge.’ Wolff argued that disease control regulations should be based on scientific evidence and harmonized as much as possible to keep compliance-related costs to a minimum. And developing countries will need to increase their capacities in managing livestock disease, she warned, if they want to continue engaging the rules-based systems of industrialized countries.

‘Increased cooperation and support is essential to human and animal health and well-being in the Sahel region’, explained Maty Ba Diao, coordinator of the Regional Support Project for Pastoralism in the Sahel (Projet Régional d’Appui au Pastoralisme au Sahel) (PRAPS) at the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, which is based in Burkina Faso. PRAPS receives funding from the World Bank to strengthen the provision of veterinary services in four countries in the Sahel region: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Senegal. The project places a special emphasis on provision of local animal health services, particularly training people to deliver services locally and farmers to better control diseases.

Animal health and welfare are important for farmers to be able to produce more, higher quality food. When we speak of small ruminant diseases, we are speaking of diseases that affect people. Reducing the impact of these animal diseases frees up people, often women, to produce more, to generate greater incomes and to feed their families better.—Maty Ba Diao, PRAPS

Other speakers at OIE’s high-level panel included: Vytenis Andriukaiti, European Union Commissioner for Health and Food Safety; Javier Ernesto Suárez Hurtad, executive director general of Bolivia’s National Service for Agricultural Health and Food Safety; Christianne Bruschke, chief veterinary officer in the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality; Vladimir Olegovich Rakhmanin, assistant director general and regional representative for Europe and Central Asia at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Martin Cooke, head of corporate engagement at World Animal Protection; and Ben Dellaert, chairman of the International Egg Commission.

This article is part of a series that ILRI is producing about the livestock discussions held at Germany’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, in Berlin, 18–20 Jan 2018, and the participation of ILRI and its partners in this year’s forum, titled ‘Shaping the Future of Livestock—Sustainably, Responsibly, Efficiently’.

Agriculture ministers of the world decide to rebuild livestock until 2030http://www.topagrar.com | 01/22/2018
Last week more than 2,000 representatives from politics and business, science and civil society debated in ten specialist podiums, two ministerial meetings and a business forum on the 10th, on solutions formakinganimal husbandry more productive, yet more environmentally friendly and more animal-friendly. Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin. In the inaugural event, the Director-General of the International …

More oxen for ploughing means less labour for farmers (photo: ILRI/Stevie Mann). In Ethiopia’s Ghibe Valley, ILRI-led tsetse fly control methods allowed cattle to flourish in an area previously almost uninhabitable for them. This encouraged more farming in the area, relieving to a degree population and soil erosion pressures in higher, tsetse-free, elevations. Such was the impact this has had on the livelihood of farmer Worku Mengiste that he was able to employ two casual labourers to do work he previously did himself. Here he watches on as they plough his field.

Research to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in tropical climates has received a £4 million boost from the UK Government.

The investment from the Department for International Development (DFID) was announced by the Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt, during a visit to the University of Edinburgh.

Funding will enable scientists in Scotland, Africa, Australia and the USA to tackle challenges faced by livestock farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

It will support research in the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health—a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the latter of which has major research facilities in Kenya and Ethiopia.

This latest investment builds on a £10m award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced in 2015, supported by matched funding from the three partners.

Research at the centre aims to improve the productivity of livestock breeds that are available to small-holder farmers in Africa and enhance the animals’ resilience and resistance to disease.

The centre involves UK, Africa, Australia and USA-based scientists working together primarily at two major hubs, in Edinburgh and in Nairobi. It has five research strands focusing on dairy genomics, chicken genomics, the genetics of health, new breeding technologies and data management.

Appolinaire Djikeng, a genomics scientist from Cameroon, formerly led the Biosciences eastern and central Africa-ILRI Hub (2013–2016) on ILRI’s campus in Nairobi, Kenya. Before that, Djikeng served as technology manager of the BecA-ILRI Hub, and before that he conducted research at Yale University School of Medicine and the J Craig Venter Institute. Djikeng now directs CTLGH, in Edinburgh (photo credit: CTLGH).

Professor Appolinaire Djikeng, director of the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health, said:
‘The additional support from DFID is truly appreciated and is indeed a welcome addition to CTLGH resources, which will greatly increase our ability to support ongoing work and to attract other outstanding and highly committed scientists to tackle challenges of tropical animal agriculture and sustainable development.’

Professor Eleanor Riley, director of the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, said:
‘Livestock farming offers a route out of poverty in many parts of the world. It can also help to provide protein nutrition for children, which is key for child development and lifelong health. This welcome investment from the UK Government will build on the long-term engagement of the University of Edinburgh with partners in Africa and adds considerable momentum to the new centre.’

Nearly 900 million poor people rely on livestock for their livelihoods and the loss of animals through disease devastates people’s lives.

Professor Wayne Powell, principal and chief executive of SRUC, said:
‘SRUC is delighted to be a founding partner of this important centre. It reflects our ethos of strong translational, challenge-led research. The added value of this partnership will result in a more efficient and climate resilient improvement programme for sub-Saharan Africa.’

ILRI works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock. ILRI is a member of CGIAR, a global partnership of 15 centres working with additional partners for a food-secure future.

Dr Jimmy Smith, director general of ILRI, said:
‘CTLGH brings together an innovative mix of livestock genetics and health expertise working on the front lines of science-for-development impact. This important investment from the UK Government will strengthen links between UK and African researchers for the benefit of millions of people as well as sustainable livestock development.’

For several days this week (18–20 Jan 2018), several scientific directors and staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)—Jimmy Smith, Shirley Tarawali, Dieter Schillinger, Lutz Merbold and Kristina Roesel—will be participating with several ILRI partners in the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), held in Berlin, Germany.

GFFA is organized by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in cooperation with the Berlin Senate, Messe Berlin GmbH and the GFFA Berlin e.V. This is the tenth year of GFFA, which takes place at the start of International Green Week (19–28 Jan 2018), a large Expo-like international exhibition of the food, agriculture and gardening industries. GFFA also includes the Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Conference, the world’s largest conference of agriculture ministers. A final communiqué of the summit will formulate the common position of the agriculture ministers and will be fed into international discussions on agricultural policy.

ILRI’s involvement in GFFA this year includes co-hosting an expert panel on 19 Jan 2018 titled Sustainable solutions for the livestock sector: The time is ripe!. The other hosts are the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL) and the Livestock Global Alliance (LGA). The panel will be moderated by ILRI’s Shirley Tarawali.

Detail of an auroch on the reconstructed Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.
The auroch (Bos primigenius), is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited
Europe, Asia and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle.
The species survived in Europe until the last recorded aurochs died
in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, in 1627.

Sustainable solutions for the livestock sector: The time is ripe!

Experts in nutritional well-being, economic development and environmental protection from both developed and developing countries will debate the roles livestock play, and could play, in ensuring sustainable food and nutritional security for all the world’s peoples. The event will conclude with a panel and audience discussion to identify the highest priority actions and solutions for sustainable livestock futures supporting human and environmental well-being.

Key messages

The global livestock sector takes diverse forms—from families in southeast Asia keeping a flock of chickens or pigs in their backyards, to nomadic herders walking their cattle, sheep and goats across vast drylands to new pastures, to the highly intensive poultry, pork and beef production systems common in industrial and emerging countries. Each of these production systems requires its own solutions to become sustainable and equitable as well as profitable. We must find ways to better communicate this diversity. We must ensure that the negative views of the livestock sector in developed countries do not hamper the financing and sustainable development of the livestock sector in poor countries.

Including very modest amounts of milk, meat and eggs in the diets of the world’s most vulnerable people improves their health as well as their nutritional well-being, and providing these animal-source foods remains essential for children of the developing world in the first 1,000 days of their lives, without which they are set to become physically and mentally stunted for life.

Many big and as yet unexploited opportunities exist to significantly improve the efficiency of livestock production in developing countries, thereby both reducing livestock greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the livelihoods of more than three-quarters of a billion people living in poverty today.

Program

Welcome, opening remarksJimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya

Opening speechStefan Schmitz, deputy director-general and commissioner for the One World—No Hunger initiative, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany

Overview of livestock contributions to the sustainable development goalsFritz Schneider, chair of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock

Presentations and discussionFacilitatorShirley Tarawali, assistant director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya

PresentationsClimate adaptation and mitigation in animal productionRobin Mbae, deputy director of livestock production (climate change) at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Kenya

Livestock and human nutritionLora Iannotti, associate dean for public health and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University, in St Louis, USA

Closing statementJimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya

Speakers

Jimmy Smith, a Canadian, is director general of the International Livestock Research Institute, a position he assumed in October 2011. Smith has worked for the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency. Still earlier in his career, Smith worked at ILRI and its predecessor, the International Livestock Centre for Africa, where he served as the institute’s regional representative for West Africa and subsequently managed the ILRI-led Systemwide Livestock Programme of CGIAR. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urban- Champaign, USA, where he completed a PhD in animal sciences. He is widely published, with more than 100 publications, including papers in refereed journals, book chapters, policy papers and edited proceedings.

Stefan Schmitz is deputy director-general and commissioner for the One World—No Hunger initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany. For the last five years, he headed the rural development, agriculture and food security unit at the BMZ. Before that, he worked as senior advisor to the Secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, coordinated the German bilateral cooperation program with South Africa and Namibia and was deputy head of the infrastructure division at the BMZ. He graduated from Bonn University in geography and mathematics and received a PhD in geosciences from the Free University of Berlin in 2000.

Fritz Schneider is chair of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock. He has been active in the Livestock Environment and Development Initiative (LEAD) since 1997 and has been co-editor of the publication Livestock in a Changing Landscape (2010). He holds a master’s degree in livestock science. He is affiliated with the Bern University of Applied Science, where he was professor of livestock systems, vice director and head of agriculture (1993–2015).

Robin Mbae is director of livestock production at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Kenya. He currently leads climate change work in the State Department of Livestock. Mbae has worked with the Kenya government for around 30 years in various capacities, including being director of the Apiculture Institute for more than ten years before initiating the climate change unit in 2012. He has been a key player in development of Kenya’s climate change policy, act, response strategy, action plan and nationally determined contribution. He also has been involved in development of Kenya’s Climate-Smart Agriculture Strategy and is currently working on the Climate-Smart Agriculture Framework Programme and Kenya’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) for dairying. He holds a BSc in agriculture and an MBA from Nairobi and Kenyatta universities, respectively.

Lora Iannotti is associate dean for public health and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University, in St Louis, USA. Iannotti has expertise in maternal and young child nutrition and nutrient deficiencies related to poverty and infectious diseases. Her research focuses on epidemiological and intervention studies to reduce stunting and anaemia in low-resource populations. Iannotti leads projects in Haiti, Ecuador and East Africa, where she collaborates with local partners to test innovative, trans-disciplinary solutions using sustainable animal-source foods and small livestock development. Lannotti received her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Master of Arts degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. Before pursuing her PhD, she worked for more than ten years with United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations on nutrition and food security programming and policy.

Emma Naluyima is a smallholder Uganda farmer and a private veterinarian focusing on clinical medicine and herd health. She has previously worked for Uganda’s National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank and served as an officer in charge of a livestock environmental station in Entebbe. She has also worked for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, improving the genetics of his personal dairy herd through artificial insemination, and served as chair of Red Cross Mbarara. She holds a BSc in veterinary medicine and a master’s of health services research from Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda.

Adrian Aebi is assistant director of the Federal Office for Agriculture, in Switzerland. He is head of the International Affairs Unit. Aebi is an agronomist of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, specializing in agricultural economics, and has a MBA. He was formerly manager of the marketing and sales unit of Teva Pharma AG. Afterwards, he was CEO of the S.A.M. Group AG and managing director ad interim of the Emmental Show Dairy before taking up his present position at the Federal Office for Agriculture.

Shirley Tarawali is assistant director general at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her responsibilities span strategy, planning, partnerships, communications and knowledge management as well as institutional management, decision-making and representation. She serves as secretary to the ILRI Board of Trustees. Before this, Tarawali led an ILRI research theme focusing on livestock-environment, animal nutrition and natural resource management across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Tarawali has more than 30 years’ experience implementing and leading research for development in Africa and Asia. She holds a PhD in plant science from the University of London, UK

]]>https://news.ilri.org/2018/01/15/sustainable-livestock-futures-bmz-giz-and-ilri-at-the-global-forum-for-food-and-agriculture-this-week/feed/1GFFA_Stamp_Auroch-Wholesusanmacmillanhttps://news.ilri.org/2018/01/15/sustainable-livestock-futures-bmz-giz-and-ilri-at-the-global-forum-for-food-and-agriculture-this-week/ILRI’s Kapiti livestock research station—and Kenyan and global public goods—imperiled by land grabs in Kenyahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ilrinews/~3/-2W3VK2wrxg/
https://news.ilri.org/2018/01/05/ilris-kapiti-livestock-research-station-and-kenyan-and-global-public-goods-imperiled-by-land-grabs-in-kenya/#commentsFri, 05 Jan 2018 11:50:22 +0000http://news.ilri.org/?p=9218Continue reading →]]>Over the past several weeks,
illegal attempts to grab land
have escalated at Kapiti Plains Estate
(now known as Kapiti research station),
located about 60 km southeast
of Nairobi along Mombasa Road,
in Kenya’s Machakos County.
Members of groups involved in the
illegal sales have started trespassing
and building illegal structures
on Kapiti research station.

No land at Kapiti is for sale.

Who owns Kapiti?

Kapiti has been wholly owned, managed and operated by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for three decades. ILRI is a not-for-profit international research centre headquartered in Kenya. It is a member of the CGIAR system of 15 global agricultural research centres and their partners conducting research for a food-secure future. For several decades, ILRI has been working closely with national governments and ministries in conducting research to improve the livelihoods and lives of small-scale livestock keepers in Africa and Asia.

What is Kapiti used for?

Kapiti is an ILRI research station located on 32,000 acres of semi-arid rangeland in southeastern Kenya. Kapiti land and facilities are operated solely for public good research; this is not a commercial ranch and ILRI makes no profit from it.

The 80 ILRI staff working at Kapiti maintain for research purposes about 2,500 head of Kenya’s native and popular Boran beef cattle, 1,200 native Kenyan red Maasai and exotic Dorper sheep, and 250 Galla goats, which are native to northern Kenya.

The different breeds and types of livestock are kept at Kapiti to conduct research on animal health and productivity for the benefit of millions of farmers, herders and pastoralists in Kenya and across Africa and Asia.

As one of the few as yet unfragmented rangelands in the region, Kapiti also is a safe haven for large numbers of wildlife. Serving as a critical wildlife corridor for migratory mammals, Kapiti helps to maintain the fragile and unique Athi-Kapiti-Kaputei ecosystem of Kenya’s Southern Conservancy Area, with the internationally acclaimed Nairobi National Park being a centrepiece of this ecosystem.1 This park’s wildlife regularly disperses throughout the ecosystem, with more wildlife on any given day found on pastoral grazing land outside the park. Indeed, some 12,000 head of wild mammals were counted on ILRI’s Kapiti research station in a recent aerial survey—many more wildlife than were in the park itself at that time.

The main reason for ILRI’s acquisition of Kapiti was to produce ‘clean’ (disease-free) animals for controlled livestock vaccine trials. Most of East Africa’s ruminant livestock are raised on tropical drylands. Because the number of animals needed for vaccine trials is large and the number of animals that drylands such as Kapiti can support (called a ‘stocking rate’ or ‘carrying capacity’) is low, large tracts of land are required for this kind of animal health research. Kapiti’s size is in line with that of other drylands research stations, such as Kenya’s Kiboko Research Station, which is larger than Kapiti.

Kapiti is essentially a living laboratory for studying and improving livestock production in Africa’s tropical drylands. It’s a place where ILRI and its Kenyan and other research partners can develop better breeds and feeds and find new ways to treat devastating animal diseases in the confidence that what works at Kapiti will work for millions of livestock keepers tending animals in similar environments.

After ILRI bought Kapiti in the 1980s, most of the animals raised there were used in intensive, long-term research to develop vaccines against tropical livestock diseases. Later, innovative livestock genetics and breeding work was added to this animal health research. Over the last 15 years or so, research at Kapiti has continued to expand in both volume and scope and now includes livestock feeding trials and environmental assessments of African livestock production systems. The latter investigations are determining the first-ever reliable estimations of greenhouse gas emissions from African livestock and ways for livestock keepers to better cope with, and mitigate, climate change.

How is Kapiti benefiting Kenyans?

Kenya’s livestock sector is primed for growth. Demand for meat and milk is rising rapidly in Kenya and is estimated to nearly double by mid-century. The livestock sector today contributes more than 40% to Kenya’s agricultural gross domestic product, at a total value of KES515 billion, and employs 50% of the country’s agricultural labour force.

But because climate change is expected to make much of Kenya’s climate drier and harsher in years to come, it is critical that Kenya, some 83% of which consists of arid and semi-arid lands, prepares itself with research that reveals new ‘climate-smart’ approaches for using its extensive dryland pastoral grazing systems to support livestock-dependent communities. Kapiti is serving as a major centre for this type of research.

Smallholder Kenyan dairy incomes: Past work at Kapiti Research Station helped increase incomes for Kenya’s small-scale milkproducers, processors and sellers and now generates KES3.3 billion in related benefits to Kenya annually as well as providing thousands of jobs for Kenyan youth and labourers.

Vaccines for Kenyan livestock: The research by local and international scientists also contributed to development, production and dissemination of a widely used and highly effective vaccine against East Coastfever in cattle, which kills an unvaccinated African animal every 30 seconds. Today, researchers at Kapiti are conducting safety trials of vaccines against other animal diseases such as Rift Valleyfever, which is vital for both livestock and the 50 million East Africans also threatened by this disease; the last outbreak of Rift Valley fever in Kenya, in 2006–7, killed more than 100 people and cost the country KES3.1 billion. The researchers are also testing a promising new vaccine against malignant catarrhal fever, a herpes virus occurring in Kenya’s Kapiti and Masai Mara regions that is transmitted from wildebeest to sheep and cattle grazing locations where wildebeest have recently calved, depositing the virus. The experimental vaccine, based on a viral isolate from Kenya, induced immunity in 80 per cent of animals vaccinated at Kapiti in 2016; data from further studies at Kapiti will support the commercialization of this vaccine.

The 2011 eradication from the world of rinderpest, a cattle plague that has devastated the economies of whole regions, is an example of just how important animal health research is to reducing the huge burden livestock diseases continue to place on Kenya and other tropical developing countries. With the last reported outbreak of rinderpest anywhere in the world occurring in Kenya’s Meru National Park in 2001, the Africa Union-InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources estimates the total benefits of eradicating rinderpest from Kenya to be KES44.7 billion.

Kenyan livestock breed improvements: Having recently discovered that a Kenyan Boran animal is resistant to East Coast fever, ILRI researchers are working to ensure the selection of that desirable trait in the country’s Boran breeding programs. And the researchers are working with local communities to cross-breed high-yielding exotic Dorper sheep with drought- and disease-resistant local red Maasai sheep2 to help Kenyan farmers deal with climate change.

Kenyan livestock-wildlife ecosystems: The traditional co-existence of livestock and wildlife at Kapiti has also enabled ILRI scientists working closely for many years with a local Maasai community at Kitengela, in neighbouring Kajiado County, to find ways to reduce wildlife-human conflicts and to increase the benefits wildlife provide livestock herders. Besides wildlife tourism, such benefits include an ambitious Wildlife Conservation Lease program paying pastoral land owners not to fence, develop or sell their land. The latter program depended on the work of a highly participatory ILRI-led research project improving livestock production in the Kitengela region and producing maps showing which lands were fenced and which remained open, maps that were subsequently used by the local Maasai council to develop a ‘master land-use plan’ for better managing this region’s unique land, livestock and wildlife resources.3, 4, 5

Livestock insurance for Kenyan pastoralists: Among many other research projects benefiting Kenya and Kenyans directly, ILRI has been pioneering jointly with the Government of Kenya and its ministries innovative insurance schemes protecting poor pastoralists in northern Kenya against livestock losses due to drought. A recently initiated government-run Kenya Livestock Insurance Program based on ILRI’s pilot insurance project has so far paid out about KES547 million to over 20,000 pastoralists in the region.6

Kenyan livestock and climate change: Researchers are also using Kapiti to determine the greenhouse gas emissions generated by Kenyan livestock. This, the first study of its kind conducted anywhere in Africa, found African cattle are less responsible for some forms of global warming than previously believed.7 ILRI researchers at Kapiti are also testing new ways to feed and manage African livestock that can both increase livestock and farm yields and reduce livestock impacts on the environment.

Just who and what is the land grabbing putting at risk?

As to who, and what, is most at risk from the land grabbing at Kapiti, which has been escalating since November 2017, consider the following.

First are the people of Machakos County and elsewhere in Kenya who have been duped into thinking this land is available for purchase and stand to lose substantial amounts of money.

Second are the 80 ILRI workers who live with their families at Kapiti and the Kenyan and international scientists who conduct their experiments at Kapiti, many of whom have now been threatened with violence by the trespassers.

Third, these illegal incursions also threaten the wildlife-rich Athi-Kapiti Plains ecosystem, which is essential to the health of Nairobi National Park and other pre-eminent conservation areas in southern Kenya.

And fourth, the ongoing lawlessness risks disrupting or stopping important long-term livestock research, thereby threatening the futures of hundreds of millions of livestock producers—as well as the processors, sellers and consumers of milk and meat—across Kenya, Africa and Asia.

In brief, Kenyan people and livestock-wildlife ecosystems, as well as critical livestock research for the poor, are all now imperilled by the greedy actions of a few.

2 ‘Red Maasai sheep is a fat-tailed indigenous sheep breed in Kenya. It is renowned for its resistance to . . . gastrointestinal parasites and drought tolerance. It is, however, poorly ranked in terms of body weight. Until the mid-1970s, purebred Red Maasai sheep was the main type of sheep kept in the southern pastoral lands of Kenya, probably numbering several million head. In the 1970s, however, a population of the synthetic meat breed Dorper was imported to Kenya from South Africa for research and multiplication purposes, to increase weight gain. No instruction was provided to farmers about how to maintain a continuous crossbreeding programme and many farmers continued crossing their flocks with Dorpers. This indiscriminate crossbreeding was subsequently proven unsuitable in many production areas. Crossbreeding or upgrading to Dorper may be appropriate if the environmental conditions are good. In semi-arid regions, and when there is adequate feed, Dorper sheep has a larger body size and produces well compared with Red Maasai. However, in more harsh conditions, for example in arid or humid areas or under high parasite challenge, Red Maasai are of about the same size as Dorper and survive better . . . . Farmers . . . show interest in both breeds: Red Maasai for its drought and disease tolerance and Dorper for its body size and growth, so in order for a breeding programme to be accepted, it should consider using both breeds.
— From Purebreeding of Red Maasai and crossbreeding with Dorper sheep in different environments in Kenya, Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, by E Zonabend König, E Strandberg, JMK Ojango, T Mirkena, AM Okeyo and J Philipsson, Dec 2017.

4 Between 1977 and 2002, the wildlife populations in the plains to the south of Nairobi National Park fell by over 70%. Particularly hard hit were migratory animals such as wildebeest, which traditionally graze in the national park during the dry season and move south in search of new pasture during the wet season. From nearly 40,000 migrating animals in the 1970s, wildebeest numbers have fallen to about 1000 [in 2012]. . . . This is one of the few places in the world where you can see major wildlife populations, including 24 species of large mammals, grazing and hunting against the jagged backdrop of a populous city, often in the company of Maasai cattle. Little wonder, then, that there are conflicts between conservation and development, and sometimes between wildlife and the Maasai. . . . [T]he master plan provides the local council, for the first time, with the means to control development.—From Saving the plains: ILRI research team wins Sustainability Science Award for its pastoral research in Masailand, ILRI News blog, Jun 2012.

The University of Florida has been awarded USD8.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund livestock research over the next five years to tackle high rates of food insecurity and undernutrition in two of Africa’s landlocked nations—Burkina Faso, in the west, and Ethiopia, in the east.

The new project focuses on food-producing farm animals that help poor families nourish themselves by providing them not only with milk, meat and eggs to consume but also, through sales of those high-value foods and animals, with livelihoods and means to escape poverty. In 2015, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences USD49 million to establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems over five years. This initiative, which received the new Gates grant, is led by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in partnership with the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

The grant will help poor farmers feed their animals better diets, which in turn will help them better nourish their families. Lack of good-quality, year-round feed for livestock is one of the greatest constraints to livestock production in the developing world. With access to better feeds, these small-scale African livestock keepers can help meet an increasing demand for livestock-derived foods, escaping poverty in the process.

Raising chickens in Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

In Ethiopia, this project will also focus on finding ways to limit children’s exposure to chicken droppings with the aim of preventing their developing chronic gut inflammation. The inflammation, officially known as environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) and as yet poorly defined, is a widespread syndrome associated with micronutrient deficiencies and stunting in poor countries.

The new Gates Foundation-funded livestock project will be carried out by the University of Florida in collaboration with the Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA), based in the USA; the Environmental Institute for Agricultural Research (INERA), in Burkina Faso; the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and Haramaya and Hawassa universities, in Ethiopia; the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered in Ethiopia and Kenya; and Ohio State, UC Davis and Washington universities, in the USA.

About the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural SciencesWith more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county extension offices and award-winning students and faculty in the University of Florida’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries and all Florida residents. http://ifas.ufl.edu/

About the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems
The US Government Global Food Security Strategy guides the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems, which is one of 24 Feed the Future innovation labs drawing on the expertise of top US universities and developing-country research institutions in long-term, multi-disciplinary and competitively funded applied research and capacity development. http://livestocklab.ifas.ufl.edu/

About the International Livestock Research Institute
The International Livestock Research Institute is a not-for-profit member of the CGIAR system of 15 global agricultural research centres and partners conducting research for a food-secure future. ILRI works with partners to improve the livelihoods of small-scale livestock keepers, sellers and consumers in Africa and Asia, creating better lives through livestock. https://www.ilri.org/

Alessandra Galiè, a social scientist specializing in gender issues in agricultural research who now works in Nairobi, Kenya, at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), conducted her doctoral research in Aleppo, Syria, at ILRI’s sister CGIAR institution, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). This week Galiè received a prestigious award for an academic paper she published documenting how ICARDA’s participatory barley breeding program in pre-war Syria impacted women’s empowerment. Galiè wrote the paper with her PhD supervisors Janice Jiggins and Paul C. Struik, both at Wageningen University & Research, in the Netherlands; and Stefania Grando and Salvatore Ceccarelli, in Syria.

From the abstract
‘Building on the empirical findings of a six-year study (2006–2011) undertaken in the context of a participatory barley breeding (PBB) programme in pre-war Syria, this paper establishes the links between women’s empowerment, seed improvement through [participatory plant breeding] and seed governance vis-à-vis household food security. The study shows how the programme enhanced the empowerment of the respondent women and how gender-blind seed governance regimes at national and international levels restricted the empowerment of these women ultimately affecting the pillars of food security.’

From the introduction
‘The study explored in depth the process of empowerment as perceived by twelve Syrian women from ten households in three villages as they became involved in the [participatory plant breeding] programme. Changes in empowerment were monitored on the basis of indicators selected in collaboration with the respondent women.’

Syrian girl in a barley field (photo credit: ICARDA/Alessandra Galiè).

From the conceptual framework

Sen (1990) and Kabeer (1999) see empowerment as a process that can enhance the individuals’ capacity of self-determination—that is their capability of living the lives that they have a reason to value.

‘The empowerment discourse has focused on empowerment as an individual process (see, Eyben and Napier-Moore, 2009), as relational process with changes in power relations (Drydyk, 2013) or as changes in structures or institutions of power (Tsikata and Darkwah, 2014; Kilby, 2006). Kabeer (2012) emphasises that women’s empowerment must entail both institutional and individual change, that is: change in women’s consciousness, in their self-perception and in their relationship with others; change in the norms, conventions and legislation that regulate women’s rights, circumstances and their ability to make choices.’

[This study] adopts three principles of self-determination identified by Santarius and Sachs (2007): ‘recognition’, ‘distribution of resources’, and ‘access to opportunities’.

From the results and discussion

The findings show that irrespective of the gender of the respondent ‘men are considered to be the farmers and to have farming knowledge’, and ‘farming is man’s work’.

‘The respondent women were generally under-valued as farmers by both men and women, at the household and community levels. At the same time the findings reveal more nuanced gender performances between idealised and actual gender roles. The latter were susceptible to changes in daily life, based on household needs and circumstances, idealised gender identities as well as social status considerations. Young women worked as daily labourers both on and off farm; a young woman from Ajaz managed the family farm (i.e., she worked the land, sourced the inputs, sold the produce, and took decisions about the farm management) because her men folk were either too old or abroad. Deviance from behaviours considered appropriate for women was often publicly denied but practically accepted when performed with due respect to the consensus norms. This was the case of the abovementioned young woman from Ajaz who maintained that her farm was managed by her men folk. Similarly, an old woman from Souran attributed the farm management to her sons only when they were present in the room or other men were listening to our discussion. Otherwise, she stated that in her family she was the most knowledgeable about farming and was therefore in charge of it—as she demonstrated on various occasions during this fieldwork. . . .

‘The findings, therefore, show that the potential of [participatory plant breeding] in supplying varieties responding to the needs of both women and men farmers were undermined by the lack of both a release system for varieties selected by farmers in Syria and of a gender-sensitive international legislation protecting farmers’ rights to varieties.

This evidence highlights also how customary rules, coupled with a lack of gender-equal national legislation, can hinder women’s capability to assert their role and knowledge in farming, and to claim new spaces in revenue-generating and decision-making activities such as the sale of barley and variety selection through [participatory plant breeding].

‘The findings showed that a gender-sensitive [participatory plant breeding] provided the participating women farmers with opportunities for empowerment by increasing their recognition of women as farmers, enhancing their contribution to the household economy, supporting their access to information and relevant seed, and impacting on their decision making in agriculture (Galiè, 2013a). . . .

‘The study further shows how, by accessing new public spaces and information, and open discussion of women’s roles in farming and [participatory plant breeding], new understanding of empowerment and self-determination arose, that in some cases led to a questioning of traditional gender models.

. . . [G]iven the limited set of life opportunities that the respondents perceived for themselves, it is argued [that this study’s] participatory nature, its activities targeted to empower women, and gender-sensitive methods, rather than seed improvement activities per se—opens up novel opportunities to experience new contexts and conceive different life-paths. . . .

‘Whether this can translate into actual changes in women’s circumstances is a longer term issue that this study did not assess. . . .

‘The study showed that only the intervention of the [participatory plant breeding’s] programme’s managers to rectify gender-discriminating behaviours at both village and programme levels limited the marginalisation of women from benefit sharing. It was this top-down support that transformed gender-discriminatory practices among PPB participants in opportunities for the women farmers to acquire new awareness of unequal treatment and of their right to demand fair rules. Only with the backing of the programme could they voice their demands and fear less for backlashes. . . . [The study] argues for the need to include gender considerations in international legislation regulating access to seed. . . .’

Alessandra Galié with a farmer participating in her research in pre-war Syria (photo credit: ICARDA).

This work was supported by the CGIAR Participatory Research and Gender Analysis Programme and by Wageningen University.

Lindsay Falvey, chair of the ILRI Board of Trustees, watches ILRI’s first 360-degree video, which showcases the work of its Smallholder Pig Value Chains Development Project in Uganda (photo credit: ILRI).

As part of a quest by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to pilot new technologies for better communication of its work, the institute’s Capacity Development Unit recently worked with scientific and staff based in Uganda to produce CGIAR’s first-ever 360-degree video, which offers glimpses into an ordinary day in the life of a Ugandan pig farmer, trader and consumer.

‘We’re always looking at how new technologies can enhance our work. We saw an opportunity to use 360-degree videos to provide visitors to our campuses in Kenya and Ethiopia with “immersive virtual visits” to other regions where ILRI works,´ said Iddo Dror, head of ILRI’s Capacity Development Unit.

360-degree filming
Three-sixty–degree videos record views in every direction at the same time. During playback, viewers have control over what they look at in the panoramas they find before them. In the words of CGIAR communications officer Manon Koningstein, ‘Our audience can experience a story straight from the field, to better understand it and, we hope, to be provoked to act on the experience. The idea is to involve the audience more to make them feel more.’

Pig value chain development project in UgandaPig production is a major and increasing source of livelihoods for more than 1.1 million households in Uganda, where consumption of pork meat is rising rapidly. The explosion in small-scale pig keeping and the (largely informal) processing and selling of pork products in Uganda is considered by experts to have high potential for raising both incomes and nutrition in households across country. With funding from an International Fund for Agricultural Development and European Commission partnership as well as Irish Aid, the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock, an ILRI-led joint program of five research and development organizations, has implemented a Smallholder Pig Value Chains Development project in five districts of Uganda.

A 360-degree short video shot in Masaka and Mukono, two of the five districts, includes interviews with pig farmers and pork butchers as well as district government officers.

Beatrice Nabitiri, a pig farmer, tries out the 360-degree camera using a gimbal, a pivoted support that allows the camera to rotate about a single axis, at her farm in Masaka, Uganda (photo credit: Manon Koningstein).

Taking ILRI communications to a new level
The first showing of this video, to the ILRI Board of Trustees in October 2017, was well received.

´We’re delighted to have produced CGIAR’s first 360-degree video, which introduces viewers to Uganda’s vibrant smallholder pig sector´, says Dror. ‘We’d like to produce a few more such videos to capture the breadth of ILRI’s pro-poor livestock-research-for-development field and lab work. As the technology advances, we may look into virtual reality and augmented reality add-ons as well.’

Watch the short 360-degree video:Step into the Uganda Pig Value Chain Project (run-time is 4 minutes 30 seconds). Once the video starts running, click and hold the arrows in the grey-coloured circle at top left to view different parts of the panorama.

]]>https://news.ilri.org/2017/11/10/a-360-degree-immersive-dive-into-ugandas-smallholder-pig-sector/feed/2FalveyLindsay_360-video_Cropped3susanmacmillanhttps://news.ilri.org/2017/11/10/a-360-degree-immersive-dive-into-ugandas-smallholder-pig-sector/Scaling up use of livestock technologies in Mali—progress of a Feed the Future programhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ilrinews/~3/tWQdxeNUEdY/
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The Feed the Future Mali Livestock Technology Scaling Program is a three-year initiative (2016–2019) promoting inclusive growth of all the actors involved in adding value to the production and marketing of ruminant livestock in this large, and largely livestock-dependent, West African country. The program aims to increase the incomes and food and nutritional security of 266,000 people who keep cattle, sheep and goats, as well as other actors in this value chain in three regions of southern and central Mali: Sikasso, Mopti and Timbuktu. Supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the US government’s Feed the Future initiative, this livestock program is helping to close productivity gaps in Mali’s ruminant production systems, enhancing both the volume and the value of these animals when marketed in the country.

The program’s most recent report describes some successes and swift progress made in recent months towards achieving these goals as well as some new challenges the program is facing.

The first half of 2017 saw the completion of a series of training courses on:

Current livestock vaccination campaigns, which offered suggestions on more participatory approaches to take

Livestock fodder production and use

Training trainers on growing Brachiaria fodder grass

Training trainers on use of integrated packages to manage livestock fattening operations, raise small ruminants, maintain and manage work oxen and feed lactating cows

Training data collectors on techniques to use in collecting information on livestock markets

Techniques used to establish feed grinding units and to produce multi-nutrient blocks using the feed grinders

In addition:

Workshop participants helped to finalize the design of a monitoring and evaluation framework for the program

The program delivered three batches of a thermostable vaccine against peste des petits ruminants, an infectious disease commonly known as goat plague, for a total of nearly one million doses

A total of 80.000 cattle, sheep and goats were vaccinated against peste des petits ruminants, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia and pasteurellosis

Two program partners—Catholic Relief Services and Association Malienne d’éveil au Développement Durable—identified potential producers of seed for growing dual-purpose sorghum, cowpea and groundnut crops that will feed ruminants as well as people, and for growing Brachiaria fodder grass

Jointly with Finance for Food Security and Women Entrepreneurs, the program organized a June workshop to enhance links between livestock producers and decentralized financial systems and banks attended by more than 200 livestock producers, representatives of livestock producer organizations, non-governmental partner organizations, decentralized financial systems and banks from communities in Bamako, Sikasso, Koutiala, Bougouni and Yanfolila

Innovation platforms were established to bring together fodder producers, livestock keepers, livestock fatteners, butchers, livestock traders and veterinary service providers

The program also proceeded with the recruitment of a communication officer and a field officer.

Radio marketingA main partner in this program, the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (Comité permanent inter-États pour la lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel [CILSS]), has been developing a new data collection method that will enable additional market indicators to be monitored, such as the number of animals sold, the number exported, animal weight, how accessible are inputs for the livestock producers, supplies and prices of milk, prices of meat, and the prices and quantities of hides and skins sold.

Animal prices are being disseminated through radios stations, with market enumerators and community radio producers and broadcasters working together to disseminate livestock market information every week. In just the past three months, some 160 announcements have been broadcast in local languages on private or community radio stations to livestock producers and livestock market agents.

From the end usersThe Feed the Future progress report on the Mali livestock program features three stories from three of the program’s participants.

Efad Mohamedoun is a 55-year-old chief of Assana, a Tuareg camp 30 km from Timbuktu on the Timbuktu-Goundam-Bamako road. He also serves as president of the Tamzizayat association, which has been supported by this program to promote production of native bourgou grass (Echinochloa stagnina), an essential food for livestock in the Niger River’s inland delta region. This year, the Tamzizayat association has stored 3,000 bourgou bundles and sold 2,000 bundles at FCFA200 (USD0.35) per unit. This generated an income of FCFA400,000 (USD715), which was used to purchase 20 bags of feed concentrates to secure supplemental livestock feeding during the dry season. The balance of the money was used to care for family members and to pay school fees for three children, including two girls, in Timbuktu.

Oumou Dicko is a Fulani producer from the ‘circle’ of Djenné in Femaye commune, in Koumaga village, in the Mopti region of central Mali. She is a dairy farmer and sheep fattener. To increase her production and diversify her sources of income, she engaged in 2016 in fodder production. When fed the sweet sorghum fodder and grains harvested on farm, her cows produced twice their daily milk yield during the dry season (3–4 litres/day instead of 1–1.5 litres/day). The additional milk ensured that her children were not underfed/malnourished in the dry season. This better feeding also improved the reproductive performance of her cows and prevented deaths of her animals due to feed shortages in the dry season.

Fatié Sanogo is a small ruminant fattener from the village of Farakala, in the Sikasso region of southern Mali. In 2016 and 2017, he benefited from forage seeds and practical advice provided by this Feed the Future livestock program. During the 2017 campaign, he fattened and sold 60 cattle in 3 rotations between January and June. After two months of fattening, he made an average profit (per animal) of FCFA50,000 (USD90), which represents a third of his costs, for a total profit of FCFA3,000,000 (USD5,375). The income he generated from this activity allowed him to meet the needs of his family, improve his production capacities and obtain a CFA2,500,000 (USD4,475) loan from a micro-finance institute in June to expand his production capacity.

Challenges aheadDespite the encouraging progress and successes described above, new challenges have also emerged this year that require the close attention of the program in the coming months.

The fragile security situation in the areas of intervention is a major obstacle in reaching out to some target communes.

The lack of resources for meeting support costs means that innovation platforms and farmer field schools find it difficult to finance their action plans and to mobilize their members. Program team meetings were organized with the innovation platforms to find ways to generate resources through the platforms and to source funding for platform and farmer field school meetings. Some power struggles also emerged among innovation platforms and the leaders of communes and cooperatives. Consultative meetings clarified the expected roles and responsibilities of each partner and agreements were reached on ways to manage innovation platforms.

Attempts to link cattle fatteners with Laham Slaughterhouses are facing various problems: disagreement on the price of 1,000/kg of liveweight, use of liveweight as a basis for sales, payment procedures (on the spot or otherwise) and general rejection by traditional livestock keepers of the new system to ensure their own broker operations are sustained. Consultations are under way to reach consensus on these issues.

Finally, although ensuring gender equity is stated to be an important element of this livestock program, to date the gender focus seems to be restricted to ensuring that a number of women participate in the program’s training courses, innovation platforms and other activities, with little regard for promoting women’s decision-making and other aspects of women’s empowerment. A gender strategy is in the making and should help address this issue in future.

Faustina Akyoo is a dairy farmer in Tanga, Tanzania. Her five dairy cows are an important livelihood asset for her family (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).

International humanitarian assistance has long since slipped down in the agenda of African officials. With rapid economic growth forecast in much of the continent, government development priorities largely focus on increasing productivity and investment. And in Tanzania, where approximately 37% of the rural households possess cattle, chicken, goats, pigs and sheep, this puts livestock at the centre of the development debate.

Despite accounting for 11% of the African cattle population, livestock-related activities contribute only 7.4% to Tanzania’s GDP and growth of the livestock sector at 2.6% is low. In recent years, the government of Tanzania has prioritized the transformation of the agricultural sector, yet the absence of a livestock roadmap has hindered progress. However, detailed inter-disciplinary research by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MALF) reveals the potential benefits of a comprehensive livestock master plan in Tanzania.

With relatively small levels of investment in the livestock sector, USD621 million over five years, the joint MALF/ILRI plan aims to create 1.8 million full-time jobs—80% going to farm family members and another 20% to hired employees. Beyond the direct benefits to the livelihoods of rural people, transformation of the country’s livestock sector has the potential to lower foods prices, benefitting urban consumers, and to generate foreign exchange earnings through increased exports. Implementation of the livestock master plan is also seen as critical to achieving food and nutritional security at household and national levels.

The Tanzania plan assesses contributions by three traditional pillars of livestock development—breeds, feeds, health—as well as by institutional policies on key livestock value chains (crossbred dairying, and red meat, pig and poultry production) for the long-run development of the sector. The plan provides evidence that investment in the development of crossbred dairy cows could lead to a 35% surplus of milk production over domestic demand, enhancing nutritional security, industrial output (e.g. in the baking industry) and export earnings.

The story is less positive in the red meat subsector where limited access to land for grazing and feed production will constrain growth in the beef sector. Without a substitution away from beef consumption, Tanzania is still likely to face a 17% red meat deficit by 2022. Since small ruminant meat accounts for less than 20% of red meat production, it is unlike to significantly help close this projected deficit. With a rising population, this is likely to put upward pressure on red meat prices.

Successful interventions—largely in the areas of breed selection, disease control and feed production—could significantly expand the share of poultry in the economy by 182%, to USD323 million within five years. Interventions in the pig sector—leading to more sustainable and climate-smart operations and ensuring high-quality and safe pig meat/pork—could significantly reduce poverty by increasing household incomes, food and nutritional security. The contribution of pork to Tanzania’s GDP would be expected to rise by 83%, to USD36 million by 2022.

Perhaps most importantly, the growth of the poultry and pig subsectors would enable Tanzania to close the projected ‘all meat’ deficit, increasing the share of white meat to total meat consumption from the current 9% to 41% by 2032. There are, however, some caveats. The benefits that can accrue from implementing the livestock master plan will require investment in changing tastes away from red meat.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, development of the Tanzania livestock master plan was overseen by a high-level technical advisory committee convened by the MALF livestock permanent secretary, Maria Mashingo, and chaired by Catherine Dangat, ministry’s director for policy and planning. The committee comprised directors of key MALF livestock-related departments and other government agencies, and representatives from the private sector, civil society organizations and development partner agencies.

Data collection and quantitative diagnostics were supported by ongoing involvement of national livestock experts and in consultation with a wide range of key stakeholders. The quantitative sector analysis was undertaken using a Livestock Sector Investment and Policy Toolkit developed by the World Bank, the Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations working under the auspices of the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources.

Read the key findings of the Tanzania livestock master plan in this ILRI brief. Separate briefs on the development of key value chains, breeding, health, feed and policies can be found here.

This article is jointly written by Brian Kawuma, an ILRI communications specialist based in Uganda, and Laura Arce, a student at John Cabot University, in Rome, both of whom participated in, and reported on, the 3–5 Oct 2017 GLAD meeting.

For more than 700 million livestock-dependent people across the globe, livestock are much more than a glass of milk or a plate of meat. For these people, livestock are critical economic and cultural assets. For them, livestock provide essential nutrients to mothers and children, livestock manure nourishes and replenishes soil and livestock provide muscle to transport people and goods and to plough fields. Such livestock interests in the South are being drowned out by ongoing livestock debates in the North.

To help counter these unbalanced narratives and to increase understanding of livestock-in-development dialogues, a Global Livestock Advocacy for Development (GLAD) project is distilling evidence around livestock ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, reaching out to UN and other global policy processes and events, engaging global media and developing a group of champions—individuals capacitated to make the case for sustainable livestock. The project is also developing a user-friendly toolkit giving access to livestock evidence, facts and key statistics as well as a learning module to help people better advocate livestock-for-development issues.

The project is financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and is led by the International Livestock Research institute (ILRI).

The project bases its evidence-based activities around five priority issues: growth and equity, climate change and the environment, human and animal health, nutrition, and gender.

At the end of its first year, the project convened partners and collaborators in Nairobi to take stock of activities and critically asses initial results and plans. People from the donor, research and development communities as well as the public and private sectors met to test and validate the project’s products and insights gained so far and to generate ideas to take the results of this and other projects forward.

‘Livestock make up on average 40% of gross domestic product in developing countries in Africa and Asia but communities in these regions have not been involved in the on-going debates on livestock. We need to be the voice of the voiceless’, Smith said.

After an introduction to the project, participants dived into reviews of livestock evidence assembled to date and effective approaches to advocating livestock-for-development issues. The feedback gained will be used to improve various products of this project now in draft forms.

Group discussion using the BMGF ‘advocacy wheel’ at the GLAD convening (photo credits: ILRI/Brian Kawuma).

Participants shared a few of their insights at the GLAD meeting.

While all the other issues are important, our organization focuses on growth and equity, which are the global goals for sustainable livestock. We’ve had better success by anchoring our advocacy around sustainable development and how livestock contributes to this.—Eduardo Arce Diaz, Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL)

We ought to tell the story of livestock people. Facts are important but presenting the human faces behind livestock enriches the narrative.—Franck Berthe, Livestock Global Alliance (LGA)

Our research generates technology geared towards commercialization, growth and equity, as these are the most pertinent issues for KALRO, with significant attention to climate change, the environment and gender.—Tabby Karanja, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO)

As we communicate, let’s create a human connection. Know the person, listen to their point of view and present your argument in line with their language and interests. This provides instant social capital.—Shirley Tarawali, ILRI

Participants reviewed a series of project plans and follow-up activities, with a community of practice and champions as the convening and information-sharing mechanism for this. As well as being a forum to share learning and best practices in the use of creative content on sustainable livestock and its development contributions and impacts, the community will critique and help shape the various products under development, including a communications toolkit, an evidence base and learning products, and explore ways to better coordinate and cross-advocate different policy and outreach efforts. See the project wiki for notes and resources from the meeting and a few photos.

Read more about this ILRI-led Global Livestock Advocacy for Development (GLAD) project